


Dimitri’s Multi-Step Guide to Not Living Alone

by offlight



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Werecreatures, M/M, Werecats
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2020-10-04 09:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20469047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/offlight/pseuds/offlight
Summary: Recent college graduate Dimitri Blaiddyd helps stray cat, forced to reassess life when cat turns out to not actually be a cat.





	1. cat fell down fire escape seems to be in pain what to do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HI welcome to the adventures of mittens & mitya. a few warnings:  
\- dimitri exhibits some slightly disordered eating in this fic (mostly not eating, not noticing when he's hungry, etc.)

The fact that Dimitri’s apartment has a fire escape is entirely due to Claude’s meddling.

They had been sitting in a coffeeshop with Edelgard just down the street from Claude’s new place in Chinatown, taking a quick break between running his furniture up the four flights of stairs into his cramped apartment. In between sipping at his cold brew and listening to Edelgard and Claude’s conversation about her critiques over apparent traces of lead in the paint of his apartment and his response that he’d gladly allow her to come repaint his walls if she’s so concerned, it comes out that Dimitri still has not found a place of his own yet.

“Doesn’t your new job start in just over a week?” Edelgard asks.

Dimitri coughs and plays with his straw—stainless steel, from the reusable set that Edelgard carries around. “Well, yes, but you know I—I have been looking around on internet listings.”

“Have you,” she says, unconvinced.

“You should look for places near here,” Claude interjects. “That way we can meet up easier on the weekends. Don’t make me go all the way to the Upper West Side, like Edel.”

Dimitri makes a mild sound of agreement, too preoccupied with trapping an ice cube against the side of his cup. Edelgard leans her forehead against her fingers as Claude sighs.

“You haven’t started looking yet,” he says.

Dimitri tries making another noncommittal noise, but it’s futile. Edelgard already has her phone pulled out. Within seconds they’re scrolling through listings, reading them aloud and polling Dimitri for what he wants. Unfortunately, it becomes clear that Dimitri has no idea at all what he wants—his tentative responses, like “Enough space for a bed?”, are so useless that they eventually stop asking.

In the end, it is not too hard for them to find a place—given that money is not a concern and he has zero expectations, they quickly find a decent duplex just off of Houston Street. It is a one-bedroom, all to himself, with a monthly rent that would make any average person balk. The first time they all walk in, Claude takes to crowing about how large it is, spinning around in circles with his arms out to prove his point.

“The blessed lives of the one percent,” he says, hand over his heart.

“Keep moving,” Edelgard says, stuck behind him in the entryway with a large box in her arms.

He does so, but quickly yells, “You have _two floors_!” and takes off up the set of stairs.

Because of them, Dimitri finds himself settled in this new apartment way faster and way more efficiently than he was hoping for. It is shameful to admit, but all of his original feet-dragging had been pretty intentional. There had been nothing that scared him more than the mortifyingly vast freedom that awaited him after graduation and his promise to his step-sister and their best friend that they would move into the city together—but a short few days later and Dimitri finds himself standing in the middle of a sparsely furnished living room, staring at the fire escape outside his window and wishing that everything would move a little slower, at least long enough for him to catch his breath.

He slides the window up and tentatively removes the screen. He sits on the windowsill, a little uncertain about the stability of this rusty old fire escape. It is then that he notices the black cat on the stairs above him.

“Oh,” he says. He cranes his head to get a better look.

The cat doesn’t seem to have noticed him and continues laying there, curled up. Dimitri prays the fire escape doesn’t give out—winces when he first steps out and realizes that the rust is collecting red on his socks—and moves to get a better look.

It finally notices him and shifts, turning to fix him with big, gold eyes. Dimitri notes that it doesn’t have a collar.

“How did you get this high up?” he wonders aloud. “Do you not have an owner?”

The cat stares back at him. He is just starting to feel silly for talking to it like a human being when the cat stands up suddenly and stretches, paws kneading out.

“Is that a yes?” he asks, before he can stop himself.

The cat fixes him with another look before laying back down. Dimitri has to fight the instinct to apologize.

He doesn’t know much about cats, but he thinks that it’s not a good idea to leave it so high up by itself. He can’t dismiss the chance that it might fall. He stares at it, thinking, before running back inside and opening his fridge. It’s entirely empty, with the exception of a half-bottle of kombucha that Claude had been drinking. Nothing that would entice a stray.

When he pokes his head back out of the window, the cat is still there, on the same step. It had curled up again but turns to look at him this time.

“I think it would be best if you came down from those steps,” he says, hoping that the serious tone of his voice could instill a sense of urgency. “I understand your faith in your own abilities, but if you were to fall it would be very painful.”

Dimitri wonders if it's possible for cats to scoff. He’s pretty sure that’s what it just did.

“Well, I don’t have anything to offer you at the moment, but I could go find something if that would convince you.”

It doesn’t react, either way, so he considers that as acceptance. He’s not at all sure what cats like to eat, so he pauses to do a quick search on his phone. Cat food or canned tuna, for the easiest options. Easy enough.

“Give me a moment,” he says to the cat, before scooting back into his room and grabbing his keys and wallet.

The convenience store on the corner does not carry any cat food. Canned tuna it is—he makes his way back quickly, anxious that the cat may have moved or fallen since his departure. Sure enough, when he makes his way back up to his room and peeks back out, the cat is gone.

He drops the bag, steps out to take a closer look at the pavement below. No, nothing there. He takes a moment to sigh in relief. Perhaps it had just left, as strays are sure to do.

He considers texting Claude and Edelgard about it, to ask if they had any experiences with stray cats, but decides against it. Edelgard is surely in class, while Claude is likely to still be at work. He’s the only one out of them with enough free time to worry about the wellbeing of one random stray in Manhattan.

That thought makes him feel just slightly melancholic. He gives up and hopes that it’s doing okay, opens up a can and sets it out on the step the cat had been on.

“Help yourself,” he announces.

Someone in an apartment across the street catches sight of him talking to himself. He waves, to be polite, before ducking back inside and closing his window.

It is an afternoon and evening of taking stock of his new apartment, sorting out what few possessions he brought over from home and noting down what purchases may make his life a little more convenient for the following year. By the end of the night, all of his stuff has at least been taken out of their boxes—with the exception of a small pile of books, which he spares one glance before deciding that that’s enough for the night.

He checks the fire escape once before going to bed and notes that the can is empty, moved just slightly from where he had initially left it out. He brings it inside to throw it out.

.

There are six cans of tuna to the pack. Dimitri has always been fond of routines, so he finds himself settling into his new one nicely—waking up, checking outside for the cat, doing his best to talk it down if it’s there, going into his pantry and leaving out an open can on the stairs before grabbing his laptop and books and leaving for the coffee shop down the street. There, he studies and taps around on his computer and looks up origins and explanations for the memes that Claude sends him until sunset, at which point he stops at a restaurant for dinner before heading home. Opens the window again, discards the empty can of tuna, goes to sleep.

When he talks to Edelgard and Claude about how he’s settling in—well, thank you—and how he’s finding the city—overwhelming, but lovely—he does not mention the cat. In that way, he coexists very peacefully but quietly with it in secret, all up until that weekend, when he wakes up to thunder and the sound of torrential rain against his window and bolts right out of bed.

It’s quite a dreary day, with clouds so dark in the sky that it feels like night. When he raises his window, he can barely keep his eyes open through the amount of rain that flies straight into his face. He steps out and squints and—sure enough—can make out the cat on its usual step. Today it is sitting up, slightly hunched, against the side of the stairs.

“I know it’s been fun having this back and forth between us,” Dimitri yells, this time, to be heard above the storm. “But I think you should come in today, given this weather.”

The look that the cat gives him feels very, very intelligent. And very, very stubborn.

Well. Dimitri supposes he’d never anticipated for it to be easy. Still, with it thundering and raining so hard outside, he doesn’t feel comfortable leaving it alone. “You can turn your nose up at me if you’d like, but I’m concerned for you,” he says, sliding out and making his way up the steps.

The cat stiffens, straightening up. It pins him with a very pointed stare, as if in warning.

“It would be easier if you came with me willingly. I have more food if that could persuade you. Though I’m not entirely sure what it is that you like—we can experiment around—but you do look thin, it probably would do you better for the winter if you were to eat a little more—”

Dimitri tries to advance as un-menacingly as he can, but the cat stands up entirely and begins to curl its back in a way that gives Dimitri the impression it’s not pleased. He’s starting to wish that he had looked up, beforehand, how to approach a cat without scaring it away. He stops and thinks back to movies that he’s seen in the past. A gesture of goodwill that he can remember from them is holding out a hand. He’s not sure if he smells unthreatening, but it’s worth a try.

“It may be harder for you to smell in this rain,” he says, as a caveat, before extending out his hand. “But I promise I won’t hurt you. Please consider coming inside.”

The cat considers it for a moment before it does nose its way forward, cautiously, towards his fingers. Up close, it’s smaller than Dimitri was expecting. Its fur is black and sleek, slicked down from the rain, and its shape lean. Dimitri is not familiar with how to discern feline ages, but he thinks that this one doesn’t feel too old, not with the way that it’s behaving.

After more hesitation, it finally touches its nose to his middle fingertip, so light that Dimitri almost misses it. He assumes this means it’s accepted him. That thought makes him quite pleased.

“Is that a yes?” he asks, and moves his other hand to help it down the steps.

The cat reels back at the extra motion, jumping up.

The following sequence of events happens too quickly for Dimitri to process—but when he frantically recounts it to the veterinary clinic secretary shortly after, this is what he settles on—

The cat’s movements had placed it precariously close to the back of the open stairs, which had Dimitri reaching forward in panic to catch it in case if it fell. This, unfortunately, had the two of them fumbling around each other for a few moments and ended, somehow, with him accidentally knocking it off the fire escape with the back of his arm, the cat screeching as it fell down to the pavement below.

“Will it be okay?” he asks, after being called in from the waiting room. He had been standing in the back for the past few hours, not wanting to track water all over their seats. His pacing, unfortunately, had not helped his anxiety and left a track of wet carpet in the corner.

When he comes in, he sees the cat lying on the table, looking relatively unbothered and very much alive. Its fur is fluffed up, like someone had blow-dried it. Dimitri notices its left front paw bound up in something and feels such a potent wave of guilt that he has to look away.

At the same time, he has the strange feeling the cat is trying to make eye contact with how hard it’s staring at him, as if it were mentally cursing him out.

“He’s a pretty resilient one, actually,” the vet says, only slightly taken aback at Dimitri’s very soaked and haggard appearance. “You mentioned he fell a few stories?”

“Yes. Five,” Dimitri says, and feels worse about himself.

“Well, he doesn’t look it. What probably happened is that he landed well on his own,” she says. As she speaks she pets the cat smoothly, from its head down to its tail, with an ease that makes Dimitri stare. For all of the trouble he had gone through with that cat, it is surprisingly docile now. “It was a pretty clean break. Just make sure you leave the splint on, and he should heal up on his own in a few weeks. Try and keep him from using that leg, you may have to move some platforms so he isn’t tempted to jump up. I’ll have them give you the name of some pain medication, in case if he gets upset. But otherwise, nothing injured inside, everything looks good. He’s free to go home.”

Dimitri reaches forward, curious if its fur is as fluffy as it looks, but the cat stiffens and hisses at him the moment he moves closer.

“It doesn’t really like me,” he explains, when the vet raises an eyebrow. “It’s not actually mine, I’ve just been leaving food out for it.”

“Right. I think you mentioned that.” The cat nudges at her hand with its nose and meows, and she resumes petting. Dimitri stares more. “We checked, and it doesn’t seem like he’s microchipped. If you’d like, I have a few shelters nearby that I can send him to.”

This surprises him. He hadn’t even thought about sending the cat away until that very moment—he knows it to not be true, but in a strange way, he had already started to consider it as his own.

The cat seems to feel the same way. It bats her hand away and stands up, a little unsteady from its bound paw.

“Would it be possible for me to care for it?” Dimitri asks as she stares down at the cat in surprise.

“Well, sure, if you’d like. He’s actually fairly healthy—though a little underweight, you may want to keep an eye on that—but I can schedule you for an appointment to get his shots up to date.” Dimitri stares forward at the wall, trying to imagine what shots for a cat would look like. She catches the look and sighs. “We have some materials for new cat owners, some shopping lists and general tips, ask Amy out front on your way out. We should also schedule an appointment to get him fixed.”

“Fixed?”

“Yeah, he’s not neutered.”

The cat yowls suddenly, loud enough to make Dimitri wince, and tries to launch itself off the table. Dimitri only barely catches it in time and holds it around the middle as it tries to wriggle free, screeching all the while.

“Funny cat,” the vet says, “It’s like he knew what we were talking about.”

“It _is_ quite smart, I think,” Dimitri says, hoping that he isn’t hurting it with how stretched out it’s starting to look.

“You should probably put him down, doesn’t look like he’s the type that likes being held. And you should give him a name if you’re going to keep him, instead of calling him an ‘it’ all the time.”

This is what Dimitri spends the entire time waiting for his Uber brainstorming, brand new cat carrier in his arms. By the time the driver arrives and starts to coo over his cat, asking him what its name is, he can respond with reasonable certainty, “Mittens.”

Mittens, as if on cue, begins howling again. He does not stop until they get back to Dimitri’s apartment, until Dimitri opens the carrier, at which point Mittens bounds off into a corner of the room and begins to nudge at his cast and hiss every time Dimitri comes near.

There is something strangely intimidating about living with an animal that he’s pretty sure hates him. He watches Mittens from afar and only attempts to approach him when he remembers that it’s been nearly a whole day since either of them have eaten anything. Dimitri opens and leaves the final can of tuna on the floor, goes downstairs to find some take-out, comes back, and falls asleep on the couch before he manages to eat a single bite.

.

A clattering sound makes him wake up at a strange, uncertain time of the night.

He is first thrown off by the fact that he is in the living room. It takes him a few moments to remember that he had fallen asleep suddenly, and then a few more to realize that the sound is coming from inside his apartment, just down the hall. He jumps to his feet.

There is light coming from the kitchen.

Dimitri stares—he’s sure he’s left his bedroom window locked. The front door, he turns to check, looks completely undisturbed as well. He’s never experienced a break-in before, but he feels like they’d usually leave a little more evidence than this. Or, if anything else, not make such a racket while trying to rob someone.

He rounds the corner.

The light, it turns out, is coming from his open refrigerator. A stranger is standing at it, face poked inside, wearing a ‘What’s a Hoya?’ shirt that Dimitri remembers getting for free from freshman year and a pair of sweatpants that he remembers washing a few days ago.

The stranger straightens up and glares at him when he walks in. Dimitri stops, dazed, and thinks that something about that glare feels oddly familiar. He watches the stranger brandish a week-old half-bottle of kombucha in his right hand.

“I always thought you might be a little stupid,” he demands, “But even _you_ have to know that this doesn’t qualify as food.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- i wanted the lords to be friends. i desperately wanted them to be friends.  
\- ALSO just wanted felix to be a cat. no explanation necessary for why i hope  
\- will be honest and transparent and say that updates.... i have no idea when i will update this. but im very fond of this kitty felix so you WILL be seeing more of him


	2. werewolves but instead of a wolf it is a cat

“Um,” Dimitri responds. “I’m not that big a fan of kombucha myself.”

The stranger shoves the bottle back into the fridge and scoffs.

“Okay,” he says, and closes it. “Then where’s the real food?”

Dimitri has never had his apartment broken in before. He’s not entirely sure what to do. He thinks about calling the police like all of the people do on the TV shows, but it doesn’t feel like this situation is that severe. The air doesn’t feel tense between them, and it wasn’t like the stranger tried to flee the moment he was spotted. If anything, he just seems…hungry?

He realizes, suddenly, that the stranger does look alarmingly thin. Dimitri hadn’t been sure of it before since it appears his own clothes were already oversized on this person. Up close, he’s able to make out the knobby bend of his elbow, the way that his wrists look just a little too fragile.

Maybe he had run away, seeking shelter, and had stumbled on Dimitri’s apartment. That made more sense to him, marginally—it was still strange that he had put on Dimitri’s clothes, as he had remembered folding and hanging them up in his bedroom, but the stranger probably had a reason why.

Dimitri tries to think. He does a quick scan and remembers the takeout, cold on the coffee table, that he hadn’t managed to eat before he passed out. The stranger follows his line of sight.

“Is that it?” he asks.

“Is what it?” Dimitri responds, his voice resetting to the distant cordiality that has been trained to activate when his brain stops working.

“Is that all the food you have in your house?”

“…Is that bad?”

The stranger closes the fridge door, rests his head against it, and mutters something too low to hear. Dimitri is just about to ask if he’s fine when the stranger turns and walks away from him, towards the living room.

Dimitri follows. He’s wondering if there’s a way to broach the subject of this runaway helping himself to his food in a more considerate way, but he supposes that breaking into someone else’s house is already fairly frowned upon in most circumstances.

Still, there’s a soft feeling that rises in his throat when he watches the stranger pick at the bag with one hand, awkwardly shuffling around plastic. Dimitri finds himself moving forward to help him with it.

“It's cold. If you'd like it to be heated up, I can transfer it to a plate. I haven’t used the microwave yet, but it should work just fine,” he says, reaching in to pull out the little paper box of rice. There’s only one other box, filled with something that Dimitri doesn’t quite recall and vaguely remembers choosing by pointing randomly at the menu.

The stranger makes another grunting noise that Dimitri assumes is rejection. He paws back through the bag for a fork. Dimitri tries to reach forward to help but the stranger turns and glares at him in warning—narrowed eyes, catching just enough of the light for Dimitri to make out gold.

He decides to just settle back. The stranger stares him down as Dimitri sits, cautiously, on the couch.

The staring continues.

Dimitri hesitates. He scoots one couch cushion further.

The stranger huffs and looks away. He turns back to the bag, rifling through it for the fork.

Dimitri waits for the length of one brief pause before beginning. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he says, because he feels that it has to be touched on eventually, “How did you enter? Did I leave the front door unlocked?”

The stranger grunts. Dimitri realizes that this person makes a significant amount of mouth noises. This is particularly unfortunate for him, as he’s not very good at parsing out the meaning of mouth noises.

“I did leave it unlocked?” he tries.

Another noise. The stranger has since been able to dig out the fork and is now struggling to open one of the boxes. Dimitri tries to reach forward again, but the stare pins him back down before he can get up. He gives up, but can’t quite kick the feeling of pity and sadness at watching the stranger fumble with the carton.

“You were the one who kept trying to drag me into your house,” the stranger says once he confirms that Dimitri has settled back down. “I don’t know why you’re playing dumb now.”

Dimitri is extremely confused.

So the stranger isn’t a runaway? But he hasn’t invited anyone in. He hasn’t even had any contact with people, not after Edelgard and Claude helped him move in last week.

He tries to think through the people that he’s run into in the coffee shops that he’s visited, to see if the stranger’s face looks familiar. He doesn’t recall interacting with anyone in any of the shops, aside from the baristas. Is he one of the baristas? But he’s pretty sure that it was a red-headed woman yesterday, and the day before that it had been a blond…

“Oh, God,” the stranger says, watching him think. “So you _are_ that stupid.”

“I’m really sorry, I don’t remember meeting you. Was it this past week, or before that?” It’s not like the stranger is that plain looking—Dimitri doesn’t know many people with long, dark hair, so it should be quite memorable. “Did we meet at Georgetown? Or high school, maybe? Actually, you shouldn’t have my address if we met that long ago, did you get it from Claude?”

An eye-roll. “I have no idea who that is.”

Dimitri is lost. He stares off to the side, trying to remember, and suddenly spots the cat carrier at the side of the room.

He jumps off of the couch.

So that had been the nagging feeling at the back of his mind. He hasn’t seen Mittens since waking up.

He checks the windows to make sure that they’re closed—yes, so he has to be somewhere in the apartment—before glancing around the living room. There’s a small white shape on the ground. It looks a little like torn cloth and wood.

Dimitri recognizes it as Mittens’s cast.

The sight makes it difficult for him to breathe. He specifically remembers the vet mentioning for him to make sure it stays on. The thought of this poor cat being hurt again because he hadn’t been careful enough, especially after knocking him off a fire escape earlier this same day, is crushing.

He glances around, actively trying to keep calm as he thinks. Maybe Mittens made his way over into his bedroom. Or maybe the stranger had scared him, and he was hiding somewhere. Once he found him again, he could likely just bind up his paw again and take him back to the vet tomorrow to make sure no lasting damage was done.

Dimitri drops to his knees and looks under the couch.

“What are you doing?” the stranger asks, exasperated. Dimitri glances back to notice that he’s finally managed to get the two cartons open—by tearing the flaps off—and is poking at the rice with the tip of his fork.

“Have you seen a cat around?”

The stranger is finally silent, no words or indecipherable mouth noises this time.

There’s nothing under the couch, so he stands up and looks around again. There’s no way he got far, so Dimitri hopes that this means his broken paw is still fine. Plus, the can of tuna that he had left on the ground before falling asleep is empty now. Maybe he wouldn’t be starving. He isn’t even sure how frequently cats need to eat, really.

“Stop,” the stranger says, “You look foolish.”

There are too many things happening right now, between attending to this stranger and finding his now-missing cat. “Excuse me,” he apologizes. He spots the packing boxes. He starts rifling through them, checking to see if Mittens is in any of them. “You may eat as much as you’d like. I can’t seem to find my cat right now, so if you give me just a moment—he’s hurt, so I want to make sure that he isn’t placing any extra weight on his paw—”

“I said _stop_.”

Dimitri is in the middle of shuffling one set of empty boxes out of the way to check another stack, so he almost misses the murmur, from the couch—

“—I’m fine.”

Judging by the light outside, it is the very early hours of the morning. Maybe no later than three or four. Dimitri has always been accustomed to sleeping at ten and waking up at five. A lot of this came from his middle and high school years, when he had swim practice at ungodly hours in the morning. As a result, it has been a running joke between Edelgard and Claude that for any of the hours outside of his typical sleep schedule, Dimitri’s brain was only running at half capacity.

He uses this excuse for the reason why he’s staring at this stranger in his living room and thinking about how, with the strangeness of that response, it almost sounds like the stranger _is_ his cat.

He also uses this excuse for the reason why he opens his mouth to clarify, as politely as he can manage, “Are you my cat?”

The stranger doesn’t respond. He spears four pieces of chicken and shovels them into his mouth in quick succession, chewing very slow.

Dimitri takes a few steps. He realizes that the reason why the stranger had been struggling so much with the takeout cartons was because he’d only been using his right hand. His left arm had been kept against his side, bent at a tight angle.

He notices Dimitri staring and stuffs more chicken into his mouth.

“Mittens?” he tries, instead.

This gets a reaction. When the stranger turns to him this time, there is murder in his eyes. His chewing speeds up, to the point where he looks on the brink of choking.

A few tense moments later and the stranger manages to swallow, albeit with a very painful expression on his face. He jerks his fork forward.

“Right, you just reminded me. Call me Mittens again and I’ll—” He pauses to look around before giving up and gripping the fork with newfound ferocity. “Never call me Mittens again. Is that clear?”

“You’re Mittens?” Dimitri asks, feeling a little fainter this time.

He digs a nail into the back of his hand. It breaks skin and hurts substantially. Okay, not dreaming. A hallucination, then?

“My name is _not_ Mittens,” the stranger says, louder.

Dimitri has never hallucinated before in his entire life. He’s seen it a number of times in television shows and movies, learned about it a little bit in his introductory psychology classes, but that was about it. He’s not sure what he expected of hallucinations, but it most certainly wasn’t anything like this. _A Beautiful Mind_ had made them seem much more frightening. This whole situation, on the other hand, felt more ridiculous than scary.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand what’s happening here,” Dimitri says. “It’s just—you don’t look like Mittens.”

The stranger throws the fork at him. “_Felix_,” he spits.

“Who?”

“I don’t know if you think I’m kidding, but if you call me that stupid name again, I’m going to—”

“Who’s Felix?” Dimitri asks.

“_Me_!” the stranger—Felix—yells. His right hand twitches, as if it was looking for something else to throw.

For better or for worse, Dimitri is starting to feel his mind adjust. Maybe because it’s getting closer to five in the morning, he thinks to himself in the back of his head.

This stranger is his cat. His cat is this stranger.

...

“Felix,” he finally says.

His cat already has a name. This is understandable. It would be rude to not address someone—somecat?—by their actual name.

But it’s the other fact that he is getting caught up on—the fact that his cat is also _not_ a cat, but only sometimes is not a cat?

When he thinks harder, as hard as he can, it only slightly makes sense. He’s not sure if he’s trying too hard.

Felix rolls his eyes and turns back to the food. “You should microwave this rice,” he says, “It’s too stiff. And do you have another fork? Are you not going to eat?”

“Oh,” Dimitri says. He takes a few steps back to Felix, notices that this time he doesn’t recoil or glare for him to stand down. This may be some form of progress. “I can do that.”

.

The walk to and back from the microwave gives him time to process the situation a little more. By the time that he’s back, sitting back on the farthest couch cushion away from Felix, he’s feeling a little more grounded and composed, flipping a metal fork through his fingers. He's decided that Felix is not a hallucination, but it's still unclear what he is.

“May I check my understanding of this situation with you? I’m sorry, it’s quite early and I’m not sure I follow,” he asks, watching Felix bend and sniff at the plate of rice.

Another mouth noise. Dimitri waits for Felix to say something more helpful—he doesn’t—before assuming that he should just fill the space.

“So, you’re a cat?”

Felix shakes his head.

“Oh. A…human?”

Felix shakes his head again. “No.”

Dimitri isn’t sure what other options exist. He’s trying to find ways of combining them in his head, but none of the words sound right. Cat…human? Cat-person?

“I’m not entirely sure what to address you as, then.”

“You don’t have to,” Felix says. “All you have to know is that I can look like both.”

“Both what?”

Felix looks pointedly at the cat carrier and then back at Dimitri. And then stuffs a broccoli floret into his mouth. And makes a dissatisfied face.

This rings a bell. It reminds Dimitri of all of those science-fiction television shows, where people can change from humans to animals and back in the span of a few minutes. And a little of Harry Potter, the way that McGonagall could reform herself as a cat. He is extremely familiar with Harry Potter, from all of the years spent playing make-believe with Edelgard and Claude when they were all much younger.

“You have the ability to shapeshift between a cat and a human?” Dimitri asks, curious.

Felix makes a face and shrugs. “Basically.”

“Oh.” Dimitri thinks about what that would look like, tries to imagine Felix shrinking back down into his cat form. That cat had been so very small. It’s not like Felix is particularly short, either. “Does it hurt at all when you do?”

Felix shakes his head.

“That’s good,” Dimitri says. Felix pins him with another indecipherable look.

“You’re not eating?” he asks.

Dimitri realizes that Felix had been nudging the plate towards him. He also realizes, looking at the food, that it’s been nearly a whole day since he’s eaten anything.

At the same time, it doesn’t look that appetizing, not when it’s so cold. If he had been alone, he would have justified waiting until more restaurants were open in the morning to get a bagel, but Felix is still sitting right across from him, staring and waiting.

Dimitri obeys and spears a slice of carrot. It doesn’t taste bad at all.

Felix leans back and crosses his arms—or rather, he tries to and winces. He eventually settles for rubbing at his shoulder with his free hand.

“You’re not very good at eating,” he observes aloud.

Dimitri wouldn’t consider himself as bad at eating. If anything, it’s just difficult at times to find the motivation to eat. “It was a busy day yesterday, with the veterinarian and all. I do typically have a few meals throughout a full day.”

Speaking of yesterday—his eyes fixate on Felix’s arm. The feeling of guilt is back in his throat, making it hard to swallow.

“I realize I haven’t apologized about yesterday. I’m terribly sorry. I understand that it’s not an excuse, but I hadn’t meant to knock you off the stairs—or your cat self, rather—I’d only wanted to bring you in from the rain. But I’m sorry, nonetheless. Please let me know if you need anything. You must stay here until you heal.”

Felix sighs. “I know. I was planning on it. Can you stop making that face now?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dimitri repeats, “I'll compose myself. It’s just that your arm…” Dimitri glances at it again and trails off. 

“I’ll be fine,” Felix says. “Stop bringing it up, already. I get it.”

“Is it hurting now? Perhaps we can place it back in another splint, I wouldn’t want it to set inappropriately—though it may be better for your arm if you choose one of your forms to stay in, that way we don’t have to re-set it again.”

“That’s not possible,” Felix says.

“To re-set your arm? I’m sure the emergency room could take c—”

“No hospitals,” Felix interjects, sharp in tone. It surprises Dimitri. “Even when I look like a human, I’m not entirely…they wouldn’t—” A frown. “It’s not good if I go.”

“Would they be able to tell that you’re not fully human?” Felix shrugs. “We can avoid them. If that is the case, then perhaps you should change back into a cat so we could go back to the veterinary hospital. They may be able to set it back into another splint.”

Felix shakes his head. “You don’t get it.” He hesitates, his eyes darting from the cat carrier to the open cartons of food to the fire escape outside the window, where they pause for a few moments.

Dimitri follows his gaze but sees no one. When he looks back, Felix’s face is indecipherable again.

After a few moments, Felix speaks.

“If I tell you what I am, then you’re not allowed to tell anyone else or let anyone else find out. I’m serious.” And he sounds it. “I don’t know many humans, but…I don’t want my identity getting out.”

“Oh, of course,” Dimitri says. “Your abilities, you mean? I won’t let anyone know.”

“More than that,” Felix says. He sets his fork down and looks back out the window. “I don’t…there are things that we don’t usually tell humans. To be safe.”

“Do you have reasons to believe you’re unsafe?” Dimitri asks, alarmed. He’s uncertain if Felix is implying that there are people coming after him, but his head begins to fill it in immediately—maybe there’s a reason why he hasn’t heard of any other shapeshifters before. Maybe they’re all being killed off?

Felix glances back to him. Dimitri is surprised to see him break into a small smile.

“No. Wow. You’re really strange for a human. Glenn always said—” He cuts off suddenly, face falling. “Anyway. No. I’m fine. It’s not even that big, maybe. It’s just that I…we can’t control when we change.” Felix watches him carefully as he continues to explain, “It happens with the sun. When the sun’s up, we’re cats. When it’s not, we’re not. You get it?”

Dimitri tries to. “It’s automatic?”

“It’s biological.”

Dimitri eventually finishes off the rest of the food within the next hour. There are some more specific questions that he asks during that time. Felix answers a fair number of them and shrugs through the rest.

Apparently has too many questions. Felix lets him know this directly.

But then the sky beings to lighten. What Felix had been trying to convey finally makes sense—when Dimitri blinks in the middle of asking for another point of clarification and Felix is replaced, in a fraction of a second, with a pile of crumpled clothes.

“Oh,” Dimitri says, watching as a small cat makes its way out from underneath the shirt.

It jumps onto the coffee table, left paw lifted carefully, and stares at him with large, gold eyes.

“Okay. I think I get it, now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- when they were little edel played harry potter, clod played hermione, and dima played hagrid  
\- i didn't cover nearly as much ground as i wanted BUT it's been a while and i wanted to indulge in happy/goofy/silly dmfx feelings so. here we are  
\- its late so i will probably edit tomorrow im sorry if you find silly mistakes


	3. what do cats eat to keep healthy not meat

Dimitri has always been a little self-conscious of his pace of work. The reason for this is because both Claude and Edelgard are incredibly quick workers—fast and meticulous—in ways that earned them easy praise when the three of them were growing up together. Dimitri, in comparison, has always been told that he’s “steady” and “consistent.” This doesn’t nearly reward him with as many compliments as his sister or his best friend, but has still served him well.

Nonetheless, it does take him a while to get things done.

Felix, it seems, is not one to move slow. When Dimitri wakes up after a minimally-refreshing nap on the couch, it’s almost noon and Felix is meowing loudly at him, pacing in front of the fridge.

He gets the message.

It’s a quick walk out to the corner store for more cat food—and human food, he realizes, for when Felix gets hungry at night. This, however, poses to him a much wider variety of choices. Dimitri isn’t sure what exactly Felix likes, so he gets a little bit of everything.

Everything, as it turns out, totals up to four, bulging reusable bags of food.

Dimitri comes back and is immediately greeted with Felix meowing—louder, if possible—and winding between his legs. It would be more amusing if it didn’t almost make him trip at the doorway.

He sets the bags down and really does trip when he tries to step back over them to re-lock the door. Felix jumps up onto the countertop and shoves his face into a bag.

Dimitri steps back to assess. Looking out at his spoils like this, it seems enough. He supposes he should unpack everything before leaving for the day and gets to work.

“You don’t like broccoli?” Dimitri asks, looking up from the middle of rearranging boxes of tea when Felix meows for his attention, waits until he’s looking, and then bats a head of broccoli off of the countertop with a paw.

Dimitri bends to pick it up. A bunch of asparagus bounces off his head.

He sighs and picks that up off the ground as well, and then stands up quickly to move the carton of eggs as Felix starts to pad towards it. Felix moves past him and nudges a tomato off the counter with his nose. Dimitri winces as it thuds onto the title and rolls off under the table.

Felix makes quick work of the rest of the groceries and stops at the end of the counter, pinning him with a pointed look.

Dimitri steps back, arms full of produce, to take stock of everything that Felix spared. All that’s left is a rotisserie chicken, the carton of eggs, a block of cheddar cheese, and the usual cans of tuna.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t want to eat anything other than meat and dairy?” he asks.

Felix’s tail flicks.

“I’m not good at cooking, but it’s probably best that you eat some vegetables.”

Felix jumps off of the counter and makes his way over to a full bag on the ground. He begins to paw at a bunch of bananas.

“That’s not exactly what I was talking about,” Dimitri says, reluctant. “But I suppose it’s close.” He makes a note to look up a more balanced diet for cats when he has the time.

There is still work that Dimitri needs to do—and his part-time job would begin the next day—so he is a little concerned about leaving Felix alone for such long periods of time. Especially after Dimitri insisted on binding his broken paw in a very makeshift fashion with a shoelace and a fork (“Really, we should re-visit the vet someday soon, I don’t feel comfortable with the fact that we’re not taking proper care of your paw—sorry, arm—or is paw fine? I’m not sure which you—right, I’ll move on.”), poor Felix isn’t exactly the most mobile.

“No, that may not be a good idea for today,” Dimitri says, looking up from where he’s experimentally upended a mound of tuna into a bowl to see Felix nudging his nose against the living room window. Felix yowls and nudges harder. Dimitri tries to be firmer. “That fork is practically the size of you—I’m worried that it may get caught in the fire escape and that you would be stuck.”

Felix yowls again, as if saying that isn’t important.

“If you were stuck and I was out of the apartment, I would not be able to help you for hours.”

Another yowl.

A stroke of genius. “What if someone else sees you and tries to take you to a shelter?” Dimitri tries, instead.

This does make Felix pause. He paces a little, looks out for a moment longer, before curling up on the windowsill and glaring at Dimitri from it.

“I know, I apologize,” Dimitri says. “But I’ll hurry back. I’ll only be gone for a while.”

Felix puts his head down. Dimitri swears that he hears a grumble. Something about the whole exchange—and his acute awareness that to anyone else, he’d sound like he was attempting to hold intelligent conversation with a cat—feels silly enough to make Dimitri smile.

.

It isn’t until he’s down the street in his usual coffeeshop, a set of LSAT logic games pulled up, that his whole ordeal with Felix last night begins to sink in.

A little bit of reason returns to him. It makes him stop in the middle of reading a problem (_Elsie must schedule interview participants for the new opening at the firm. There are eight candidates being considered for the position and are numbered one through eight in the order that they will be interviewed_—) and stare past his now-cold americano.

Cat...people? People cats? People that can become cats? Cats that become people—but only by sunrise and sunset?

He distinctly recalls comparing Felix and his whole...situation...to Harry Potter the night before, but now Dimitri wonders if Twilight would be a more accurate comparison—he taps to the side of his laptop trackpad, hesitating, before navigating away from the page of logic games with just the slightest tinge of guilt.

He pulls up Ecosia, places his hands over the keys, and thinks. How is he supposed to search for this?

Tentatively—_cats that can become people._

Completely unhelpful. Only one article looks like it could remotely be of any help (‘Can people become part cat? - Answers,’ to which one person had confidently responded ‘No.’), while all of the other search results are focused on how to be like a cat, why cats grow jealous, what human foods to feed cats, etc.

Dimitri scratches at the nape of his neck, frustrated. He knows that it tosses up some of his hair in the wrong direction when he does this—Claude always says so—but he never remembers until it’s too late.

While using his right hand to smooth it back down, he uses his left to try something else—_shapeshifting cat_.

This gets him a few more results, and he leans in closer to read them past the glare from the sun. It brings him to a slew of articles, many of them talking about shapeshifters in general.

He clicks on one at random.

** _Shapeshifting_ ** _is defined as the ability to transform physically into animal or non-human entities through inherent superhuman ability, divine intervention, demonic manipulation, witchcraft, or inherited ability—_

He’s not entirely sure if Felix would fall under the category of divine intervention or demonic manipulation—or at least Dimitri hopes he doesn’t, as he’d feel quite out of his depth if that were the case—and sorcery sounds...unrealistic. Superhuman ability? That makes the most sense. But reading the phrase ‘inherited ability’ makes Dimitri take pause.

Prior, he hadn’t reached the point of wrapping his mind around even one human-cat-changing-person enough to consider the possibility of _more_ than one human-cat-changing-person. However, now that he thinks about it, it would make plenty of sense if there were others like Felix out there. Perhaps Felix comes from a family of human-cat-changing-people? Or maybe he was born to human parents, and is the only human-cat-changing-person in the world?

That thought is heartbreaking. Dimitri hopes that’s not the case.

Another one of the results that he finds makes him stop and think.

_Among all of the shapeshifters commonly depicted in media, perhaps the most beloved and feared is the werewolf. The inhuman combination of man and beast, werewolves are depicted throughout fiction to come out on full moons with the rabid and ferocious intent to slaughter any living creature in its vicinity—_

Now _this_—this he’s familiar with—though it does bring him back to Twilight. The portion about the importance of the moon makes sense too—though it seems to be reversed in Felix’s case, where he’s human in moonlight and a cat in the sunlight. That, and he doesn’t seem to be particularly bloodthirsty as much as he’s just a little bit fussy. Dimitri can empathize with that. He’d imagine it would be very disorienting—being pushed off of a fire escape and then forced to room with a stranger while your paw-arm healed.

He starts another search—_werewolves but instead of a wolf it is a cat_.

Nothing comes up. Maybe he’s too wordy?

He makes another attempt—_werecat_.

A slew of pictures. A bulky man with the head of a tiger and fur all over his body, glaring right at Dimitri through the screen. The shock of it all makes Dimitri click to the images tab, where he scrolls, confused, through photos of dark, brooding, dangerous-looking cat-human creatures. Almost all of the images in his results looked some cross between intimidating and dangerous—though there are a few cheerier looking ones, colorful drawings of cartoon cat-people.

“That can’t be right,” he mutters, quiet so that he doesn’t unsettle anyone around him. He reaches up to dig the tip of his index finger into his temple as he continues to scroll.

Finally, he reaches one photo that makes more sense than anything else in the search. It’s of a little black housecat with an oversized cape tied around its neck, huge eyes turned up at Dimitri.

Very cute. A little funny. Still irrelevant.

He closes out of the window and gives up.

However useless this search proved to be, Dimitri finds himself making a few new considerations.

He’d be awfully surprised if Felix turned out to be any type of dangerous—the worst possibility that comes to mind is Felix finding heavier produce to lob at him—perhaps a cantaloupe or watermelon. But it does make Dimitri a little more curious about Felix’s condition and his history.

He remembers, distinctly, how reluctant Felix was to disclose the secret about how and when he changed forms, how he had said it ‘wasn’t safe.’ Dimitri did not put too much thought into it before, as he’d just thought Felix was cautious, but he pauses now to wonder just why Felix is so careful with that information. He could understand Felix not trusting him—especially considering the fire escape incident—but a little voice still nags him to wonder if it could be something more. The photos that Dimitri had found _were_ quite frightening. Maybe Felix felt misunderstood and didn’t want anyone to take the truth of his werecat-ness the wrong way?

Still, it’s not like he could just come out and ask about it. Dimitri thinks wisely to himself that it may be best to wait and see if Felix becomes comfortable enough to bring it up on his own. If he doesn’t? Then it’s likely not worth prying.

It isn’t until Dimitri leans back and takes a sip of his americano that he happens a stray glance to the side and spots his notebook. He remembers, with a rush and a hint of guilt, the LSAT studying that he had come to do in the first place.

Oops.

He hurries to open his practice problems again and makes a mental note that he is not to go home until he solves at least ten more logic games.

.

Ten more logic games, it turns out, takes him over three hours. By the time he reaches the end, Dimitri finds his head to be in significant pain. He takes a moment to press his fingers into his neck the way that Edelgard always tells him to, glancing out the window to watch suited businesspeople rush to the subway stop across the street to go home.

The setting sun makes him remember Felix. It makes him remember how he hasn’t eaten in—maybe too long. He gets up and stretches, reaching up and out, before bending down to shove his laptop and notebook back into his bag.

When Dimitri does get home, he is greeted by the sight of Felix in human form, waiting for him in the living room. He’s in the same pilfered clothes from the night before.

“How have you not _died_ from boredom?” Felix asks before Dimitri even makes it fully through the door.

“What?” Dimitri responds.

“Your home is the most boring human home I’ve ever been in,” Felix says. He tails Dimitri as he takes off his shoes, places them neatly against the wall, wanders over to the living room to drop off his bag by the couch. Dimitri can’t see him, but he can hear Felix’s frown. “And your neighbors are the most boring neighbors.”

“Oh. I don’t know anything about them.”

Felix huffs. “The apartment to your right kept listening to 90s rock. The bad stuff.”

“Is that so?” Dimitri isn’t sure what distinguishes the ‘good’ stuff from the ‘bad’ stuff, but Felix sounds quite intense about it. He makes a note to look it up later.

“There’s an old couple across the street—” He turns, following Felix’s pointed finger, to focus on a third-floor window in the white-brick building opposite. It has nice, lemon-yellow curtains with little dots. “—That noticed me just after you left. And then they stood there and made faces at me. For hours.”

“That’s nice of them to keep you company.”

“They clearly had nothing better to do,” Felix says, blowing a strand of hair out of his face and dropping onto the couch, one cushion away from Dimitri like the night before. “I got sick of them, so I just napped. But staying idle for that long isn’t good for anyone. I don’t want to end up like them, but you really have _nothing_ to do here.”

He makes a general gesture to some of the boxes scattered around the living room, surrounded by little piles and halos of miscellaneous items.

Dimitri had unpacked all of his belongings quite some time ago but never got around to throwing out some of the boxes or sorting through his stuff. Albums and books and papers are stacked haphazardly on top of each other in little piles, carefully measured to not be in danger of tipping over. Little trinkets and memorabilia—a boat in a bottle from Claude, a humidifier that doubles as a diffuser from Dedue, a perpetual wood calendar with birds on the numbered blocks that he’d bought in a thrift store back in D.C.—sit on the ground, pushed against the wall so as not to trip him.

He’d promised himself that he’d prioritize looking into buying new bookcases or chests, anything that could store all his mess. However, as the days continued to pass and as his life became a little more hectic (i.e., Enter Felix), this goal became much easier to shelve (pun intended). Dimitri’s eyes are now so accustomed to tracking right over them—have already considered them to be a part of the room—that he truly forgets the piles are there until Felix points them out.

He feels just a little bit ashamed. “Yes, I have been meaning to settle in a little more. Sorry for the clutter.”

“I don’t care that it’s messy,” Felix repeats, “I care that it’s _boring_.”

“Oh. I see. Is there anything in particular that would make you more comfortable? If you have something in mind, I can find the time to buy it.”

Felix draws back, grumbling. “I’m not trying to get you to spend money on me.”

Dimitri isn’t sure how to explain that money isn’t an issue in a way that doesn’t sound incredibly pretentious or out of touch, but Felix leans forward again after a moment.

“But at least—I mean—don’t humans usually have televisions?” He jerks his chin towards the wall opposite of their couch, which is currently lined with half-opened boxes. “Do you not feel the need for a television?”

An interesting question. Dimitri had never watched much television on his own prerogative when he was little, especially since Edelgard had been the one that was pickier about what shows she wanted to watch (something with animals, something with cool girls, nothing with toilet humor, something with heroes and saving the world, etc.). He found it difficult to sit still for lengths at a time, especially during the day when the sun was out. Then after his childhood, he never had reason to flip through channels on a television anymore. After all, they have Netflix these days.

“A television wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Dimitri thinks aloud. “I could leave Netflix on for you when I leave in the mornings. At least you'd have something to occupy yourself with during the day.”

“That’s not much more interesting than napping,” Felix mutters.

So Felix doesn’t like watching shows either. Dimitri doesn’t blame him.

“Then is there something else you have in mind? Something that would help you pass the time?”

“Sure. You could leave the window open. Your roof is nice.”

Dimitri remembers the little discussion they had this morning—the oddly one-sided discussion with him speaking and Felix meowing. The fork and shoelace that he’d used for a makeshift splint are sitting on the window ledge. He glances down at Felix’s left arm again. It’s pulled against his side, kept completely still, and looks very uncomfortable.

Felix shifts his body to hide his bad arm, makes an attempt to disguise it with a relatively showy yawn. It makes Dimitri feel guilt and amusement all at once.

“I understand why you would want to go outside, I can imagine you feel very cooped up in here,” Dimitri starts, slow so that he has time to think. “Still, I can’t help but feel that it would be best for you to stay inside. I really _am_ still worried about your left—um—arm, right now, but paw—well—it would be a nightmare if you were to agitate it in any way—”

Felix scrunches his face up again. “You said this all before.”

Indeed. Dimitri does feel like a broken record.

“But it _is_ important, Felix.”

“Why are you being so stubborn about this?” Felix cuts in.

This, too, is not an unusual comment for Dimitri to hear. It is fortunate that he’s quite desensitized to hearing it from Edelgard and Claude over the years, as he finds it very easy to brush it off.

“Should we bind it up? If it is hurting again, then we should do so. I have scarves that we can use.”

“No—stop—ugh, just leave it. Let’s just—just get the TV.”

Not the victory that Dimitri was looking for. He would let Felix get away with it if he hadn’t also taken some time in the coffeeshop earlier today to read a few WebMD articles on broken bones—he learned at the time that it’s not good practice to let Felix run around with his arm out like that, as it could greatly impact his healing if he continued to move.

A small back-and-forth between them begins and ends—thirty minutes and an instructional YouTube video later—with Felix crowded back into his corner of the couch, visibly sulking, his arm bound up with a piece torn off a cardboard box and an old scarf that Dimitri has had since junior year of high school.

“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Felix says.

“I’m glad you did,” Dimitri says, “I would have forgotten otherwise.”

“_Yeah_.”

They take a small break to eat (“You haven’t had anything to eat _all day_? How are you not _starving_—”), shredding pieces off of the rotisserie chicken with forks, before spending the rest of the night on Dimitri’s laptop. It takes them hours of searching and debating and learning about specs and features of televisions before they finally settle on one that can be delivered by the end of the week. It also, after a while of perusing catalogs and online listings, begins to reveal other things that Dimitri realizes are usually standard in household furnishings, that Felix points out would make his apartment look a little less like a warehouse and a little more like a home.

He’s right, of course. They start collecting bookmarks of furniture and appliances to a new folder on Dimitri's web browser. This, although not confirmed aloud by either of them, becomes their first joint project.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- the title to this entire fic may change soon because i never call it this in my head so theres no point in keeping it as this  
\- my original goal was to make this fic feel very episodic and silly and i think i am finally in the place for that to happen in earnest.. so EXCITING!!!!!!!!  
\- YES this update comes bc of the quarantine. make sure you social distance, wash your hands, get plenty of rest, check in on your stress levels, keep tabs on your people, etc etc! its what mittens & mitya would want for you!!


End file.
